Enjolras, Grantaire, and the Great Crossover of 1832
by RebelFaerie
Summary: A series of Enjolras/Grantaire oneshots inspired by songs from other musicals. Some fluff, some dark, some modern AU, some canon. All ridiculous. If you ever wanted Enjolras as Sweeney Todd, or Grantaire as Tevye, you are my people, and here you go.
1. Take Me or Leave Me

**[A/N]** Every time I listen to a musical, I think to myself, "You know what would make this song better? If it was a Les Mis crossover, and Enjolras and Grantaire were singing it to each other." And then I thought "Why not just write those scenes? It's not like you have a twelve-page paper due next week."

(Which I do. I have a twelve-page paper due next week.)

Anyway, that's how I got here, flinging unrelated musicals together like it's a showtunes-themed episode of _Chopped._ I have six or seven of these sketched, which hopefully I'll flesh out and add periodically.

First up: Rent. In which the part of Maureen will be played by Grantaire, Joanne by Enjolras, and I guess Roger by Combeferre?

* * *

I.

"Take Me or Leave Me"  
(Rent)

"Seriously?" Grantaire demanded. He stood up from the futon and passed the joint to Combeferre. Ferre took it with equal parts gratitude and apprehension, like an Aladdin who knows this unexpected fourth wish will come with terms and conditions. "You're gonna do this now?"

"It's not me, the one doing it," Enjolras said. He closed the door behind him, dropping his keys on the table.

That was debatable, Combeferre thought. If _it_ was a word that here meant _entering your apartment with a death glare in your eyes and saying "Grantaire, why is the doorman wearing your pants,"_ then Enjolras was definitely the one doing it.

"Oh, come on," Grantaire shouted. "It's not like I can help it."

"You could if you tried." Enjolras' voice never rose above conversational volume. Still, Ferre thought from his observational position on the couch, it was the wrath of the young lawyer that sparked the fear of God in you.

This was what he got for trying to have a chill Friday night. You come over to see your friends, smoke some weed, watch a shitty movie, and all of a sudden you're Switzerland, with World War II whizzing past over your head and no damn idea what just happened.

The two men stood on opposite ends of the room, as if unable to decide whether they wanted to be on separate continents or at one another's throats. Though it was nearly nine o'clock, Enjolras had come straight from the office, judging by his clothes: tailored trousers, gray waistcoat, white oxford shirt. He looked like a model who'd gotten lost on the way home from Fashion Week, if that model had also harbored homicidal impulses. His blue eyes were cold enough to kill. Grantaire, squaring off against him, had likely not changed his clothes since Tuesday. His hair was a wreck, his beard had begun to grow in again, and he wore a Rolling Stones concert tee over an alarming pair of leather pants.

They reminded Ferre, who indulged an artistic turn of mind when high, of Giotto's portraits of vices and virtues. Symbolic polar opposites. Showing here, fortitude, doing battle against inconstancy. He almost laughed at the allegory—or maybe that was the weed again.

"Should I…" he began, standing up and edging toward the door.

He might as well have stayed silent. Neither Enjolras nor Grantaire were listening to him.

"Normal people say 'hello,' you know," Grantaire said.

"Normal people don't spend their Friday afternoons _fucking the doorman_."

"I'll just go then, shall I," Ferre said.

"Yeah, maybe," Grantaire and Enjolras shouted in unison.

Ferre raised his hands in sarcastic apology and picked up his coat from over the back of the futon. He took the joint with him as he left. It was a mark of the heat of the argument that Grantaire didn't even protest.

Enjolras turned his back on Grantaire and entered the half-kitchen, just off the door to their studio. "If you could control yourself for fifteen minutes," he began.

"Apollo, come on," Grantaire yelled—really yelled, surely the neighbors could hear. "Don't do this. It's who I am."

"Who you are?" Enjolras repeated. He whirled back around to face Grantaire. His expression might have been carved from marble.

"There will always be hot doormen flirting with me!" Grantaire spread his arms wide like a Christ in need of a shower, dripping persecution.

Enjolras stared. Words seemed to have failed him. Despite his anger, he couldn't help but wonder what the neighbors had thought of that. He turned his back on Grantaire again, reaching a hand toward the top cabinet. He never drank unless fighting with Grantaire, which always left him with a sharp and urgent need for gin.

His hand hadn't even made it to the handle before Grantaire caught him by the wrist. How he'd crossed the room so fast, Enjolras couldn't fathom. Weed usually made him slower, but anger must have counteracted it, and the apartment wasn't so big to begin with. Enjolras tried to pull his arm free, but Grantaire did not release his grip. He spun Enjolras away from the cabinet to face him. The distance between them had collapsed into nothing. Enjolras could feel the motion of Grantaire's chest against his own, rippling with his breath.

"Let go," Enjolras said. His voice was so low Grantaire could barely hear it.

"Not until you listen to me."

"R, you're drunk," Enjolras said. The remark wasn't accusatory, but cruel in its lack of surprise. "Listen—"

He tried to break away again, again unsuccessful.

"No, you listen," Grantaire said. "Monsieur Grandes Ecoles, Monsieur Junior Councilor, you listen. Don't pretend like this is on me. If you weren't such an anal-retentive, elitist, frigid piece of shit, I wouldn't have to."

"So this is my fault," Enjolras said. His blue eyes never moved from Grantaire's.

Grantaire blinked. The total lack of emotion in Enjolras' question had startled him out of his own rage. The room came into focus again. He stood in their efficiency kitchen, a death grip on Enjolras' wrist, shouting at someone three inches away from him. Grantaire released his hand immediately and stumbled backward, hands up and spread wide. If Enjolras was in pain, he gave no sign of it, save one. Without looking away from Grantaire, he massaged his own wrist with his left hand.

"I'm sorry," Grantaire said. "I'm drunk…"

He was. And high, too. He hadn't realized it until now. Enjolras turned away from him, sweeping his keys back up from the table. Grantaire felt the distance widening behind him, and had no weapon to fight back with other than his own useless words.

"I'm scum, I'm shit, I'm sorry—"

"Don't be melodramatic," Enjolras said. He tucked the keys into his pocket, still not looking at Grantaire.

"I just…You don't want me. You don't ever initiate. Anything. Ever. So what am I supposed to do?"

Finally, Enjolras turned back to face him. He was standing near the door now, seconds from leaving. His blue eyes leveled accusation at Grantaire like javelins. "We've been over this," he said.

They had. Many times.

On paper, they made no sense. As a rule, Enjolras' libido was just below sea level, whereas Grantaire's was perched on top of Mont Blanc, horny as hell and wondering what took him so long to catch up. Enjolras made lists in his sleep. Grantaire had never met a rule he wouldn't break. Enjolras was anxious, jealous, disciplined, inexpressive. Grantaire was insecure, flirtatious, chaotic, often drunk. Their collective level of disaster was meteoric.

Sometimes, Enjolras wondered why they tried so hard.

"I'm doing my best," he said. "I need you to do your best too."

The unspoken second half of the sentence landed like a blow to the face. _And you aren't. Not even close._

"I am," Grantaire said. "I can't do better. Take me or leave me, Apollo. Those are your choices."

Enjolras left.

#

"You've reached Michel Enjolras. If this is an urgent legal matter, please call my office. If not, leave a message after the tone."

"Apollo, pick up the phone. I know you're there. Are you OK?"

Sigh.

"Listen, I know. I fucked up. You fucked up. Shit. That's not what I meant. I mean, I did. Me. Mostly. Will you just pick up? We can work through this. We always do."

Pause.

"It's been two days. You have to pick up."

 _Beep._

#

"…leave a message after the tone."

"Come on. I don't want to beg. But I will, OK, if that's what you're waiting for. Call me."

 _Beep._

#

"…leave a message after the tone."

"Seriously. Come back home tonight. Please. I'm here. I want to talk."

 _Beep._

#

"…leave a message after the tone."

"Fuck's sake, Apollo, answer the phone. Tell me what you want, and I'll do it. You want me to stop drinking? I haven't had a drink since you left. Really. You want me to say it's my fault? It is. I lose control. I freak out. I know that. Tell me anything you want, and I'll do it—"

"That might work. But keep going."

"Son of a _fucking_ bitch—"

Grantaire dropped the phone. It landed hard against the linoleum floor, facedown. Probably the screen was shattered. He didn't give a damn. He wheeled around to face the apartment door, which must have opened midway through the voicemail.

Enjolras was leaning against the doorframe. He'd folded his arms over his chest, and his head was tilted to one side in a parody of relaxed curiosity. In one hand, he held his phone. On its illuminated screen, Grantaire's name displayed as an incoming call.

"Don't _do_ that, asshole," Grantaire shouted, rattled. "How'd you get in here?"

"I have keys," Enjolras reminded him. "I pay our rent."

"You…"

Grantaire swallowed his anger. There would be time for that fight later. Right now, he had to focus on the feeling beneath the anger. The incredible, powerful rush of relief.

"Listen, Apollo, I'm sorry about—"

"I heard," Enjolras said.

Grantaire could not read his expression. "You heard?"

"I heard." Enjolras raised the phone, then, as an afterthought, ended the call. He pushed himself off the wall and entered the apartment. Without looking, he nudged the door shut with his heel.

Grantaire watched him. This could go one of two ways. One would save his life, and one would kill him. Now, more than ever, Grantaire wished Enjolras were better at making his face match his feelings. It was like trying to gauge the emotional state of a lamppost.

They stood together in the kitchen. The foot of empty air between them could have been half an inch or ten miles.

The silence would stop Grantaire's heart if he let it continue another minute. "So?" he said. "I mean, you have to say something." He was rambling, but knowing you were rambling and knowing how to stop were two different things. "I can't just keep waiting for you to say something, I want to—"

"Do me a favor, R," Enjolras said. He was smiling now, and Grantaire's heart leapt with it.

"Anything."

"Stop talking," he said, and kissed him.

 _Yes._

 _Yes._

 _God yes._

Grantaire couldn't remember the last time Enjolras had kissed him first. It made him feel like a god. Knowing that this man wanted him, and would do what it took to have him. His brain told him to let Enjolras stay in control, move slowly, ride this out as far as it would go.

His body had other ideas.

Enjolras' shirt fluttered to the kitchen floor, landing on top of the phone. Grantaire's was soon to follow.

"We're a disaster," Grantaire whispered. His breath brushed against Enjolras' neck, and he smirked at the shiver it engendered. "A total disaster."

"Yeah," Enjolras said, breathless, as Grantaire fingered the fly of his jeans. "I know. For fuck's sake, hurry."


	2. Do You Love Me?

A short little update, but if it got any fluffier it might actually have killed me.

In which Grantaire is Tevye, Enjolras is Golde, and this is possibly the strangest sentence I have ever typed in 25 years of life.

* * *

II.

"Do You Love Me?"  
(Fiddler on the Roof)

Grantaire had opened the window before they'd gone to bed. It wasn't doing any good. From three floors below, city sounds wafted into the room. Traffic. The rumble of voices from the sidewalk. Now and again the screech of an ambulance tearing down the Rue de Bac toward Pitié-Saltpêtrière. The heat seemed to make the sounds travel farther and more clearly, as though the heavy air were dense with the life of Paris.

The curtain to their bedroom window danced in a slight breeze, one too faint for Grantaire to feel. He sighed and turned over, the sheets tangled in his legs, hair sweat-plastered to his forehead.

Beside him, Enjolras slept. Cool as you please in boxers and a gray tee-shirt, not a drop of sweat on him. How he did it, Grantaire would never understand. It was like sharing a bed with half of Michelangelo's Pietà.

On the end table, the glowing numbers on the clock switched from 3:13 to 3:14 in the morning. Enjolras' alarm would go off in just under three hours, pulling him out of bed and back on the metro to the courtroom, where his latest trial would begin at nine. And Grantaire would still be here. Tired. Miserable. Alone.

And hot.

He turned over again. Then, twenty seconds later, again. Blew out a long breath that ruffled the damp hair on his forehead.

Lying on his back, he heard his own voice loud and jarring through the dark.

"Apollo?"

Enjolras said nothing. He did not move, but his breathing had hitched at the sound, and was now artificially regular. He was awake, all right. But he was doing his damnedest to pretend not to be.

"Apollo," Grantaire said, louder this time.

Enjolras' sigh sounded like an overworked and exasperated god. He did not open his eyes.

"What, R," he said. "What's so important that you have to wake me up. Before the Desjardins hearing. At three o'clock. In the morning."

Grantaire didn't question how Enjolras had known what time it was without looking. He was uncanny that way.

"Do you love me?" he asked.

Enjolras opened his eyes. Sat up. Stared at Grantaire.

"I'm sorry. Do I what?"

"Do you love me?" Grantaire repeated, placid and infuriating as a saint.

Enjolras closed his eyes and raked one hand backward through his hair. It was the physical equivalent of the word _fuck_ , and Grantaire knew it.

"Do I love you," he repeated. "R, it's three in the morning. You're still drunk. Go back to sleep."

If he thought he was getting off that easy. Grantaire, too, hoisted himself to a seated position. He faced Enjolras with his most winning smile, the one he knew was a perennial source of apprehension and exasperation.

"I'm not drunk," he said. "I'm asking you a question."

Enjolras sighed. His eyes did not quite meet Grantaire's. They drifted to a spot on the far wall, where a black smudge discolored the white paint. A scuff mark from when Grantaire had thrown a shoe across the room the year before, while cleaning out the closet with a bit too much élan. It wasn't fair, how beautiful Enjolras was. Grantaire would have woken him up four nights out of five just for the pleasure of watching him in the moonlight.

"Do I love you?" Enjolras said, mostly to the stain on the wall. "We've been together for three years. I pay our rent. I sit through those God-awful house-hunting shows you love."

He was picking up steam as he spoke, a measure of animation entering his words. Or maybe that was just a side effect of waking up.

"I called your bank when a man in Portugal charged 800 euros' worth of lumber to your credit card," Enjolras went on. "I put up with your dog."

Now that was a bridge too far.

"Fuck off," Grantaire said. "You love Matisse."

Enjolras grinned. Fuck, why was his smile perfect? He leaned over the bed toward the floor. Matisse, Grantaire's lazy, imperturbable spaniel, rolled over as if he'd sensed he was the subject of discussion. Enjolras scratched the dog's belly, and the sound of contented panting drifted up from the floor. Matisse always slept on Enjolras' side of the room, even though Grantaire had rescued the dog from the pound. He'd taken offense at first—man's best friend, how about a little loyalty—before realizing that he saw the dog's point.

"OK, I love Matisse," Enjolras consented. "But last week you used my toothbrush to paint the pubes on that nude you're doing."

"I needed the _texture_ ," Grantaire said, almost whining.

Enjolras directed his eyes heavenward. At least once a week, they found themselves like this. One of them with their eyes rolled to the ceiling, praying for patience, wondering what it was about the other person that made their impossible levels of nonsense somehow tolerable. Grantaire knew exactly why he put up with Enjolras' quirks. Most days, he had no idea why Enjolras put up with his.

From the thrust of his partner's conversation, it was starting to seem like that bewilderment was mutual.

"I fight with you more than anyone else I've ever met," Enjolras said. "You're stubborn and reckless and you've never taken a piece of advice in your life. You have no understanding of personal space. You spit in the face of individual property rights."

" _Vive la révolution,_ " Grantaire said, grinning. " _Un pour tous—"_

Enjolras shoved him in the shoulder, though he was smiling. " _Et tous pour toi._ "

Grantaire shrugged. As far as mottos went, it wasn't bad.

"And yet," Enjolras said.

He hadn't taken his hand from Grantaire's shoulder. His touch was cool against Grantaire's bare flesh. Grantaire shivered. How in hell did this man not sweat? Perhaps Joly would know. Grantaire had been hungover through an entire semester of physiology.

"And yet?" he prompted.

"And yet I've been here in bed with you, every night, for three years," Enjolras said. "You tell me what that means."

He hadn't answered Grantaire's question _._ Perhaps he couldn't. Love was like that, sometimes. Ambiguous and nonverbal, hard to touch but easy to feel.

And Enjolras, at base, was not eloquent. Yes, there was no denying his rhetorical power in the classroom. The courtroom. The social justice editorials he wrote for _L'Opinion_ and _L'Humanité_ —a practice that seemed as compulsive in him as shooting up was in a heroin addict. But ask the man to put his feelings into words, and you were left wondering if he'd ever strung together a sentence. It was like watching a four-year-old try to recite Rimbaud.

His answer had been circular to the extreme. Yet, by Enjolras' standards, it had been poetry.

Grantaire smiled. "So you love me," he said.

Enjolras shook his head. Well alive to the ridiculousness of the conversation, but in no mood to shut it down, either. "I guess so," he said.

This man. For God's sake. Why he had to make everything so difficult, the Lord Above only knew. "That's good to know," Grantaire said, and kissed him.

Enjolras wove a hand into Grantaire's hair and kissed him back. In that kiss, Grantaire wondered how he'd ever managed to doubt the existence of this love. It was present in everything Enjolras ever did, ever said, ever thought. His silences, his touch, the tenderness of his kiss, his breath, the beating of his heart. A love so deeply embedded, so much a part of who they both were, that it didn't need to be spoken, that words were redundant.

But. Sometimes.

Sometimes, you just wanted to hear it.

Enjolras gave Grantaire a small smile. He settled back into his side of the bed, curled up on his side again. Grantaire reached over and twined an arm around Enjolras' shoulders. With a sleepy sort of noise, Enjolras settled into the curve of Grantaire's arm. It was too hot outside to be so close, but Grantaire couldn't be bothered to care.

"Now," Enjolras said, already half-asleep. "If you wake me up again, I will kill you."

Grantaire grinned like an idiot. He was asleep in ten minutes.


	3. No Good Deed

Uh, hello, tonal shift. But I figure if the play's got "miserable" in the name, I can switch from fluffy modern AU to way-dark almost-canon.

A lil bit of Wicked, in which Enjolras is the Elphaba of my dreams and Grantaire is a somewhat vague Fiyero. (Although it doesn't come up in this scenario, Grantaire and Fiyero are the same person, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.)

CW for violence and suicidal content, though nothing too graphic.

* * *

III.  
"No Good Deed"  
Wicked

Enjolras had never felt pain before this moment. He thought he had. He'd spent seventeen years in the southeast provinces, under the thumb of a violent, royalist father and a bitter, distant mother. He'd grown up learning how to grit your teeth and keep silent. Scars didn't exist if no one saw them but you.

He escaped his father's beatings on a scholarship to Paris, boiling over with self-righteous anger and wild ambition. He'd vented it into fistfights with the privileged aristocratic boys of the Marais, who mocked his provincial accent and studious nature—dozens of fights, each of which he'd lost.

Just six months ago, he'd been jumped in Saint-Michel on his way home from a protest. Beaten by three men and robbed of his jacket, his watch, and all the money he had to his name.

But none of those had really been pain.

Not like this.

He screamed before he could stop himself. It echoed loud beyond his closed eyes. A strangled, shattered sound. He lay on the ground, crumpled on his side where he'd fallen. Somewhere. He didn't know where. His memory wouldn't stitch together. He couldn't remember why everything hurt. Why his leg throbbed, thick and sticky with warm blood. What had happened to his chest, causing the sharp stab of what must have been multiple broken ribs.

Find out where you are, he told himself. Make sure you're safe, and then figure out what to do. One thing at a time. He spoke to himself with the same forced calm he'd turned to in childhood, the kind of levelheaded rationality that could fight off panic like nothing else could.

Taking his own advice, Enjolras forced his eyes open. He saw nothing but a stone floor pooled with his own blood. He tried to sit up, but the movement ripped another scream from him. His vision narrowed, blurred black at the edges. How had he—

The Corinthe.

Panting, he sank down onto his back, staring at the ceiling. He remembered now. The Corinthe. Cornered in the top floor of the wineshop with fifteen National Guardsmen at his throat. He fought as many as he could. Shot four, beat another unconscious with the broken end of his pistol. He could not fight fifteen. They struck him over the head with their guns, threw him to the ground. A gunshot was too quick an end for a rebel. They would let his death linger. Pistols, fists, feet, one after another until the last blow he remembered, a kick to the head. And then, nothing.

Apparently they hadn't killed him. He didn't know why.

He forced himself to sit up. The whimper that escaped him wasn't dignified, but dignity had never seemed less important. He leaned his back against the wall behind him. Without help from the stone, he couldn't keep himself upright.

This, he could see now, was not the Corinthe.

He was in a small, dark room, stone floor and walls and little else. Behind him, moonlight streamed through a narrow barred window. He must have been unconscious for hours. They had taken him to prison. Away from the Corinthe. Away from the bodies.

The bodies.

Vomit rose in his throat, but he forced it down. He remembered that now, too.

The bodies, strewn across the floor of the wineshop. Abandoned. His friends' bodies.

Courfeyrac. His bright, youthful face silent. That ever-present smile vanished. His eyes had been open when he died. God only knew what he'd seen.

Combeferre. Enjolras' first friend in Paris. His roommate for three years. His brother. Face rent with a bullet through the cheek, deep enough to reveal the bone beneath.

And—

His breath caught.

Enjolras' eyes had finally adjusted to the thin moonlight. He had grasped enough consciousness to understand where he was, and why.

And to see that he was not alone in this cell.

There, right beside him. So close he hadn't even seen. A dark-haired man. Tall. Lightly bearded. Older than Enjolras, but not by much. Eyes closed. Barely breathing. Bleeding from three bullet wounds, two in the arm and one in the chest.

"Grantaire," he whispered.

Grantaire's hand was outstretched, almost touching Enjolras' foot. Even unconscious, he had been reaching out.

"No," Enjolras said to no one. "No."

 _Do you permit it?_

"No."

He did not permit this.

He remembered everything now. Merciless memory.

Grantaire. Broken and bleeding. One more disaster on his head. One more to add to his ever-growing supply.

Heedless of his pain, he pulled Grantaire toward him. Cradled Grantaire's head in his lap like a sleeping child. His fingers stroked Grantaire's hair. They came away wet with blood.

How many times had he dreamed of doing this? Hundreds of times. Every time they'd met at the Musain, he'd thought of this, of holding Grantaire close, of running his fingers through Grantaire's hair, of being alone with him in the dark, listening to his heartbeat. He'd burned for it. Would burn for it. Why, now, did he remember everything?

He remembered Grantaire sprawled at a back table in the café, tossing vulgar interjections into the pauses between Enjolras' words. Enjolras had gritted his teeth and fought not to think about the slant of Grantaire's sly smile, the seductive confidence in every one of his movements, the way Enjolras' name sounded like a caress in his mouth.

He'd thrown himself into work like a coward. Pushed the feeling away. He would wake in the middle of the night with Grantaire's name on his lips, brushed with sweat, consumed with desire. And instead of savoring it, instead of knocking on Grantaire's door and making something of it, he would light the lamp and write feverish speeches until dawn. The work always mattered more. The work. He'd flung aside his own happiness, worked himself into illness and anxiety and exhaustion, weathered bitter loneliness, for the work.

For this?

The prison door opened, admitting a rush of light and two men. Wild and desperate, Enjolras held Grantaire to him. He would die to protect him—the only one left to protect, the only one he'd ever longed to keep safe. But the men didn't care what Enjolras wanted. One swift kick to his side, and Enjolras crumpled sideways with a scream. The man's boot had caught his shattered rib. Through the pain, he couldn't fight. The guards gripped Grantaire, one by each arm, and dragged him out of the cell.

For questioning.

And then, after that?

"No—" he said, staggering up.

The door slammed shut.

"Grantaire!"

Enjolras screamed it. Didn't mean to. His brain crumbled, lungs collapsed, everything devolved into those two syllables, ripped from his throat until his voice cracked.

He dragged himself toward the door, but there was no handle on the inside. Of course not. What was done was done. What he'd done was done. Breathing heavily, he took his head in his hands.

"Whatever they do to him," he said aloud, to the stillness of his cell, "let him feel no pain. Please, God. Let him feel nothing."

What was he saying? What good were his words? What God was he praying to? Damn God, the two-faced bastard. How dare he. Of all of them, of all of anything, the one man who deserved to live.

Sweet Grantaire, the innocent cynic.

To see his body dragged from a prison cell like a piece of garbage no one would claim.

Grantaire would die.

Because of him.

Grantaire would die because of him.

Had Enjolras really believed in revolution? Liberty? Justice? Death was part of all three. Freedom was always paid for in blood, always. Yet somehow death still shocked him. He couldn't have understood what he'd asked for. Did he really want revolution? Or had he only been seeking attention? The love and approval of his working-class friends— _he isn't like the other aristocrats,_ they would say, _he isn't like his father. He's a friend of those who suffer, though he doesn't suffer, doesn't know what it means. This one belongs to us._

The question hurt more than he would admit. He didn't know the answer to it.

Enjolras had kept his emotions hidden for twenty-two years. There was no room for them, not in the world as he knew it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried. But this, now, was not crying.

He wept.

Wept without sound or motion. The tears had taken control of themselves. They fell without consent from his body and left clean tracks through the blood on his cheeks. He didn't brush them away.

The National Guard thought Enjolras was a murderer. A traitor. Worthy of death.

They were right.

He'd betrayed his friends. They were dead because of him. Even with Grantaire in his arms, Enjolras couldn't save him.

There was only one punishment for traitors of that nature.

Enjolras felt the weight in his jacket pocket as if it had appeared there that very moment. It had been there all along, of course. But it had not edged onto his consciousness until he needed it. He sat up onto his knees and dropped one hand into his pocket. The pads of his fingers brushed along cool metal.

His tears blended into laughter, both at once. It sounded like a mad ghost.

They hadn't taken it from him. The pride of the king's justice, paragons of the law itself, and they hadn't taken it from him.

God might be a two-faced bastard, but at least he was an excellent listener.

Courfeyrac and Combeferre had been like brothers to Enjolras since the day he arrived in Paris. Combeferre had found him a place to stay. Courfeyrac had introduced him to the Musain. Both had protected him when his father—drunk, angry, belligerent—had turned up on Enjolras' doorstep and threatened to turn him over to the magistrate as a seditionist.

Yet, as Enjolras caressed the metal in his pocket, it was Grantaire's voice he heard in his head.

 _It would help, Apollo, if I knew you were waiting for me when it's over._

The door opened again, admitting another pair of guards. Different ones. They edged back in alarm, seeing the pistol Enjolras had drawn from his jacket pocket.

"Disarm, or we'll shoot," the guard said, drawing his own gun.

As if Enjolras cared for anything less than his life. He'd never done a good deed in his life. All of it failure, all of it disaster. But he could do one now.

If you'll permit it, R, he thought.

 _Whenever you're ready,_ Grantaire said in his head _. I won't be long._

Without speaking a word, Enjolras pressed the pistol against the roof of his mouth, closed his eyes, and fired.


	4. Suddenly Seymour

In which Grantaire is Audrey, Enjolras is Seymour, and Félix Tholomyès is the evil dentist, because why not, and because screw that guy in particular.

CW for domestic violence, though not shown.

* * *

IV.  
"Suddenly Seymour"  
Little Shop of Horrors

God, he shouldn't have been doing this. This was stupid. He was going to pay for this, one way or another, tomorrow, when it was over. Because it wasn't possible he'd get away with it.

People like him didn't get away with anything. Let alone leaving.

Grantaire shivered and wrapped his arms around his chest, staring at the gate in front of him. Rain pounded the Rue de Bac, cold as hell with a November wind whistling between the buildings. His thin tee-shirt clung to his chest, and his matted hair plastered to his forehead, dripping freezing water between his eyes. He'd have stuck it out, any other night. He deserved everything that had happened, he should have stuck it out.

But it was so fucking cold.

And he'd come all this way.

He gritted his teeth, swallowed his pride, and buzzed the intercom.

A pause—a long one, it was two in the morning—and then a voice, sleepy and metallic through the speaker. "Who is it?"

Grantaire froze, suddenly terrified. What was he playing at? He couldn't…

"Two in the morning is a _hell_ of a time for—" the voice began.

"It's Grantaire," he said, in a voice he barely recognized. "Can I come up?"

The voice went silent, and the gate buzzed open immediately.

Grantaire stumbled gratefully through the gate and into the tiny foyer of the apartment building. He paused a moment, doubled over, catching his breath. He'd all but run from his and Félix's place on the Boulevard Alexandre Dumas, which in the rain had wiped him out. His chest ached, and as the shock faded, he began to realize how much he hurt.

He hadn't thought of it, really, when it was happening. He didn't much, anymore.

His black eye was worse than he'd thought, and as he pressed his mouth tight together, the taste of blood from his split lip brushed against his tongue. His side, too, ached, and as the memory of Félix's sharp kick against his ribs flashed back, he clenched his fists and forced it away. No. That was not happening now. It had happened before, but it wasn't happening now.

What was happening now was, he was going to get himself up these stairs. After that, he'd figure it out.

By the time he made it to the third landing, Enjolras was waiting for him in the doorway.

It was strange, seeing Enjolras outside the Sorbonne. Grantaire had never seen him this late at night, nor dressed this way, looking the polar opposite of put together. Enjolras wore a crewneck sweatshirt, gray with the university name printed across the front, and sweatpants with the logo of his lycée on the thigh. His golden hair was a wreck, sticking up in unfathomable directions as if he'd been repeatedly carding his fingers through it, struggling to put together a thesis statement or a philosophical argument so long after dark. But his blue eyes were wide-awake, stunned. Grantaire's chest tightened as he tried, then failed to meet Enjolras' eyes.

"Jesus, R," Enjolras said. "What happened?"

Grantaire looked at the floor. "I'm sorry it's late," he said.

Enjolras stared another moment, then sprang into action.

"Come in, shit, you've got to be freezing. Sit down, hang on a second—"

He ushered Grantaire into the living room and almost bolted back into the bedroom.

Grantaire carefully removed his soaking-wet shoes, looking around. He knew where Enjolras lived, but had never been here before. At first, they hadn't known each other well enough for that. They'd met on the debate team their first year at the Sorbonne: Enjolras the charismatic, unapproachable star of the team, Grantaire the disrespectful third-stringer who sat in the back and made rude remarks when he thought of them. The walls had gradually fallen between them, but by then Grantaire had started seeing Félix Tholomyès, casually and then seriously, and Félix forbade Grantaire to visit Enjolras alone. Said he didn't want Grantaire hanging around someone like that. Jealousy, he figured.

If Félix could see Grantaire now, he'd kill him.

It was a figure of speech, when Grantaire thought it at first.

But then he wasn't so sure.

Grantaire shuddered and sat on the very end of the futon, his thighs barely touching the fabric.

Enjolras' flat was—as Grantaire had expected—minimalist and spotless. His bookshelves were packed full and alphabetized, first by author and then by title within author. The futon sat opposite them, near the desk where Enjolras had evidently been working when Grantaire rang. The desk lamp was burning, and the laptop was open, though the screen had gone to sleep by now. Beside it, a copy of Foucault was balanced open with Enjolras' phone as a paperweight, showing a heavily highlighted page two-thirds through. He had a paper due in three days, Grantaire recalled—Enjolras had mentioned it the other day, in passing.

Enjolras returned with a thick down comforter in his arms, which he handed to Grantaire before sitting on the opposite end of the futon.

"Get warm," he said. He pulled his knees to his chest, as if he were the one who'd been out in the rain.

Grantaire held the blanket on his knees, but made no move to use it.

He didn't deserve that.

He shouldn't have left Félix. It was stupid, to think that he could. He deserved what had happened to him that night. The black eye, the split lip, the bruises along his ribs that he knew would start feeling worse soon, once the cold wore away. He even deserved the end, finding himself thrown out of their apartment in the cold and the wind and the rain at two in the morning, without a coat.

He deserved that. Because Grantaire was a mess. He was lucky Félix loved him. He was lucky anyone did.

People like Grantaire didn't deserve to be treated kindly, which, he assumed, was why no one ever had treated him kindly before. Grantaire knew he should have stayed on the front steps, shivering and waiting for Félix to let him back in, so he could apologize through tears for whatever he'd done. That was how it had always gone, in the past.

But it was so cold, and it was raining so hard, and something inside Grantaire had snapped.

Enjolras bit his lip, then pressed a fist to his mouth. He looked to be debating whether or not he could speak. But when Grantaire persisted in saying nothing, he seemed to decide he had to.

"R, I know you care about Félix, but—"

"Here," Grantaire said, and handed the blanket back to Enjolras. "I'll just get it dirty."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Enjolras said, then snatched the blanket back and draped it over Grantaire's shoulders himself.

The thick down felt like a dream against Grantaire's skin, damp and chilled. It took the sting out of the cold at once, and he felt his shivering begin to subside. He pulled the blanket around him tighter, cocooning himself in it, away from the world. It smelled of Enjolras. The sharp bite of his soap, Irish Spring, the ghost of the Gauloises he smoked occasionally in times of stress, of that indefinable something that was simply Enjolras, simply him.

Enjolras wrapped one arm around Grantaire's shoulders. The heat of his body penetrated straight through the blanket, and made Grantaire shiver.

"Hey," Enjolras said. "Hey, lift up your head, R. Look at me."

Grantaire, mutely, did as he was told. Enjolras sat almost hip to hip with him. Beneath the messy sweep of his hair, his blue eyes were kind, and gentle.

"It's okay," Enjolras said. "I know things were bad, but they're going to be okay."

Grantaire shook his head. It was hard to tell, even to himself, whether he were shivering or disagreeing. "They won't," he said. "I fucked up. Jesus, Apollo, he's pissed, he's so pissed."

Enjolras' hand tightened slightly on Grantaire's shoulder, as if it wanted to form a fist. He took a small breath, then let it out, releasing his grip at the same time.

"And I have to go back there," Grantaire said, rambling now but unable to help it, "and when I go back, how am I supposed to explain, he'll be—"

"No," Enjolras said. He took both of Grantaire's hands in his. Confident, now. The way only Enjolras could be. "You don't have to go back. You can stay here with me until you decide what you want to do. But you don't have to go back to that piece of shit."

Grantaire felt the tears building, fast and inevitable. Enjolras didn't understand. How could he? Look at him. He was beautiful. He was brilliant. He was confident and ambitious and perfect. He was easy to love. Not like Grantaire, who was lucky Félix even condescended to touch him at all. Félix could snap his fingers and Grantaire would do anything he asked, because no one else would ever love him, no one else ever could, that was obvious.

And it didn't make sense that Enjolras was being so kind to him, and it didn't make sense that Enjolras was still holding his hands, and it didn't make sense, fuck, it _didn't_.

"I can't stay here," Grantaire said.

Enjolras shook his head. "Yes, you can," he said. "I'm here for you, R. I promise."

Fuck. Grantaire was really going to cry. He was. Right now. Here in front of Enjolras, who was being kind to him for no fucking goddamn reason, who was being so gentle and so understanding and _why,_ why would he do that—

And the tears started, and there was nothing else for it. Grantaire hated himself for it, his shoulders shaking with tears. Before he knew what was happening, Enjolras wrapped his arms around Grantaire, inside the cocoon of the blanket, and the tears came faster then, in the embrace of those lean, strong arms. Grantaire buried his head in Enjolras' chest and sobbed, just sobbed, until it ached and his head spun and he had no tears left to cry.

He felt empty, exhausted, something else he couldn't define.

Safe, he realized suddenly.

He felt safe.

What business did he have feeling safe?

Grantaire sat up, retreating back to his edge of the futon. "You don't have to do this," he said. "I know you want me to leave, I shouldn't have come, I'll go—"

"I don't want you to leave," Enjolras said. "I don't." His voice wavered, and now it was his turn to look away. "R, you deserve so much more than this. If you knew how much it's been killing me to see how he treats you, and I tried to say to you, I tried…"

He swore and drove his fist into his thigh. Grantaire flinched and drew back.

He knew in his head he shouldn't be afraid, that Enjolras was only angry with himself, that Enjolras would never hurt him, but still, he couldn't help it, thinking of the way Félix had—

Enjolras turned white, seeing how Grantaire had inched back. His mouth opened slightly, and he looked about to stammer out an inelegant apology. Then, sensing—correctly—that Grantaire really did not want to talk about it, Enjolras slipped his hands under his own thighs. A conciliatory posture.

 _I didn't mean it. I would never._

 _You're safe. I'm sorry._

He couldn't have done anything that would mean more to Grantaire.

"What do you need tonight?" Enjolras asked.

It was so hard to believe that Enjolras was genuine.

Grantaire wanted so badly to believe it.

"It's really okay if I sleep here?" Grantaire asked, in a very small voice. "I won't be in your way?"

Enjolras nodded. "It's more than okay. Let me find you something dry to wear, and you can sleep in my bed so you—"

"Don't be fucking stupid, I—"

"No, it's fine," Enjolras interrupted, already moving back into the bedroom. "I've got another two hours of work to do anyway, so I wasn't going to sleep. I'm behind as all shit. Here…"

He was lost, briefly, to the closet, searching for something Grantaire could wear. It would be a tough search. Grantaire was three inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than Enjolras, but sweats were forgiving, and tee-shirts ran large.

Grantaire, still wrapped in the blanket, watched softly as Enjolras, without asking any questions or expecting anything in return, turned his flat and his life upside-down to make room for Grantaire in both of them.

He didn't deserve this. But he wanted to become the kind of person who did.

#

The next morning, Grantaire awoke in Enjolras' bed. He didn't open his eyes for a long moment, his head half-buried in the pillow, breathing in deep. The sheets smelled like Enjolras. The tee-shirt and sweats felt like him. The whole flat seemed to contain the essence of Enjolras, like a faint mist, like a ghost.

Nothing had ever felt more comforting. He smiled.

His face ached, the bruises along his ribs shooting pain now, as he'd known they would, but his smile shone bright despite that.

After a moment, he pulled himself out of bed and crossed into the flat's only other room.

The curtains were still open in the living room, and thick morning light spilled gold across the floor. Enjolras was curled up on the futon, underneath a throw blanket that was too short to cover his feet and ankles. He had no pillow, but had folded one arm beneath his head and slept on his own forearm. The same heavily annotated book of Foucault lay on the floor near his outstretched hand, pages slightly crushed against the floor.

A little light reading before bed, Grantaire thought faintly.

Grantaire hadn't said a word, but Enjolras shifted under the blanket, then opened his eyes. He stretched slightly, then sat up with the blanket still around his shoulders. Seeing Grantaire in the doorway, he smiled.

"Morning," he said, and ran the back of his hand across his eyes. "You sleep okay?"

Grantaire nodded. "Really good. Listen, I'm sorry I fucked up your morning—"

"Grantaire, if you apologize one more time, I'm going to make you sit through a sixty-slide PowerPoint about how not-mad I am. I'll use a laser pointer and everything."

He laughed. "Point taken."

Enjolras grinned. His smile was the most beautiful thing Grantaire had ever woken up to.

"But…but thanks," Grantaire said, and bit his lip. "Seriously."

"It's nothing," Enjolras said with a wave of his hand. He walked toward the flat's small kitchenette, pouring water into his old coffeepot and then tipping that into the tank. "Coffee?"

"Yeah," Grantaire said. "Thanks."

On the bedside table in Enjolras' bedroom, Grantaire's phone vibrated, a series of quick buzzes—call, not text. Grantaire walked back toward it, checking the name.

 _Incoming call from: Félix Tholomyès._

Grantaire paused a minute.

Then, without saying a word, he hit "decline," blocked the number, turned off the phone, and left the room to join Enjolras in the kitchen.


End file.
